Overlap
by ernestina-lambence
Summary: Summary: Sequel to ‘Echo’. Sev/Harry. Slash. Voldemort wants revenge. The Death Eaters want blood. A teenage boy wants the Potions master…


**Overlap******

**Disclaimer: **Most things in this incarnation of the wizarding world belong to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and TimeWarner. Except the blame for infringing copyright, which belongs to me. All invectives, adulation and constructive critisicms should be sent to ness_de_blah@hotmail.com.__

**Dedication: **For Byronetics and ExLongLongHair. For Luthien & Nym, too. 

**Spoilers: **PS/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF & OotP. Works best if you've read 'Echo' first.

**Summary: **Sequel to 'Echo'. Sev/Harry. Slash. Voldemort wants revenge. The Death Eaters want blood. A teenage boy wants the Potions master… 

**Rating: **PG-13. 

                                                             *****

His eyes turn to me as soon as I enter the room, ten minutes late. It took me that long to struggle with the dilemma of whether to turn up to the detention and somehow refrain from destroying the evidence of my insanity, or to stay in my quarters and alternate between blissful visions of crushing the boy's dignity and crushing the boy's innocence. In the end I let my frustration take me to the classroom, I tell myself to ensure that Potter's next attempt at Potion-making doesn't destroy my dungeon as well as his flesh. It's a lie as transparent as any of Albus's innocent invitations to tea. 

He opens his mouth to say something, but my glare makes him reconsider. If looks could cast, he'd be lying unmarked on the floor, lifeless behind his innocuous expression. If looks could cast he'd be bent over the desk, calling me Jesus. He lifts his head again and looks at me curiously. I pray the flush that rises to my cheeks looks angry. I quickly stalk away, resolving it's fortunate that looks can't cast. I'm in enough trouble already, and they have a subtle magic all of their own. 

I take refuge behind my desk, finding some umarked work in my top drawer. I silently thank Merlin for fourth year Gryffindors. My eyes scan the page and I realise I'm thanking Merlin for Dennis Creevey. Possibly not. I thank Merlin for the liberties foolish young minds take with my essay questions, instead, and dip my quill into the jar to inscribe comforting diatribes with ink as black as the twisted muscle a prosaic old romantic dared to call my heart. 

                                                             *****

My quill tickles my chin as I savour the pleasure of the last roll in the pile. I wonder if perhaps this Ravenclaw girl is Granger in disguise as I read over a ponderous description of a depressingly  basic slow-acting venom antidote that she's designed. I scribble a few detached suggestions in the margin but reserve any sentiment for my comment at the end. _A tedious description of an inane solution. Should I have been bitten by a fanged Albanian Scarafula I suspect I would have surrendered the use of several limbs and senses before finishing your instructions. Unfortunately for you, it seems I am yet to be attacked by a dangerous Dark creature  and still have the ability to  think coherently and move my hand to note your work. C-. _ I lean back on my chair as I finish with a flourish and smile unpleasantly. Maybe teaching isn't so bad after all. Potter's watching me again. Maybe it is. I shutter off my expression and rise from my chair, perhaps too quickly. I feel his gaze go from my face to my hands to my  face again, before  risk a glance and see his eyes are crinkled, and back on his cauldron where they belong. I begin to pace up and down the dungeon, and every now and then I'm aware of his eyes caressing my back. I turn and look down on him from my formidable height. He shrinks back, and stirs his Wolfsbane, adding shredded aconite every three seconds, just as he should. He's getting it right. The son of James Potter has found the impudence to try and succeed in my subject. 

As I watch his hand I remember a similar one that I suspect (though as these encounters went I had no proof, of course) slipped a bayleaf into the pile of carefully chosen herbs being added to my highly delicate sixth year experiment.  I remember coldly surveying the green eyes that flickered towards me briefly before the girl they belonged to turned back to her own project, I remember smirking disdainfully at the arm that snaked around her waist and steered her outside for a walk. I remember the rosy mouth that looked at me with smug contempt before parting in admiration of the girl whose green eyes were slightly widened, watching me with an almost equal hardness as I picked up a leaf with a long hand and added it to the simmering solution in the cauldron. I remember how brown eyes had coaxed the green ones away, glinting towards my own cold ones with sinister satisfaction before both figures turned the corner, leaving me to add the bayleaf, leaving an empty classroom and sterile jars to look on as scalding liquid belched into my face, burning, blinding. Leaving indifferent curtains and matrons and patrons to look on in the infirmary as I muttered in my sleep at visions of James Potter and Lily Evans, cowering before my wand tip…

'Say it, Potter!' It takes me a second to register that the harsh voice that spoke was mine, and that the face turned towards me is not knotted into the same disdainful expression worn by the older generation in my memory, or slack and fearful like the one in my fantasy. It takes me another second to realise that the emeraled eyes rounded with shock are not coming from a separate entity to the raven hair and open mouth, and yet another realise I'm in a reality where a Potter _has_ cowered before me and apologised, just a generation late. By the time an ironic smirk has found its way to my face the boy has blushed and begun speaking. 

'Professor Dumbledore told me he'd ask if you might teach me Occlumency again. Sir. And I think…' his face clouds. 'I think I'd like it if you taught me Legilimency this time, as well.' He moves his chin a bit defiantly as he finishes, trying to disguise his request as reasonable. Presumptuous little brat.  It's a mannerism he inherited from his father, but the question remains in his eyes, giving him an altogether more vulnerable and even endearing appearance. I curse myself only momentarily for using words like endearing to describe a Potter, before becoming distracted once again by the angle serving to define the shadows under his eyes, and the slightly haunted look within them. I'm tempted to think the depth that appears isn't only illusionary. 

His face contorts in confusion and I realise I've been watching him slightly too long, as if I'm justified in watching him at all. _Stupid, stupid git…_I turn from his accursed visage, and search for a suitable truth to cover my hesitation. The obvious will do nicely. 'Are you telling me, Potter,' I say, forming each word with incredulity 'that after accessing my mind without consent, _twice, _you would like instructions for formal entry?'

His brow folds further into a look of annoyance 'No! That's not why I want to learn, I just-' 

I will my mouth into a sneer. 'You merely wanted to learn to skim Granger's thoughts to give you a fleeting chance of passing your NEWTs?' I let my eyes rove over his Wolfsbane Potion as a desperate voice in my mind implores theboy wonder to be intimidated and scamper away to find someone who cares. Or perhaps cares less.

'No.' A voice which by all rights should not be so calm overrides my conscience. My consternation dispels as I register the boy, now standing to face me. The voice is not my own. 'Look. I've been having dreams. About the Death Eaters, about Sirius…' the retort about his perverted fantasies is halfway out my mouth before fear and irony fling it back down my throat. 'About you.' I turn sharply. 'Voldemort wanting to kill you.' I repress a wince at the sound of the name, briefly impressed that the boy had the gall to put it in such a sentence. A closed look passes over his face and a shudder passes through his body as he sinks back into his chair. I grip my wand to still a sudden urge to comfort him. When he looks up at me next, it's with desperation. His voice cracks. 'I just want them to stop.'

The full extent of his torture sinks in, and I am thankful that, whatever else I was privy to, I never had to share The Dark Lord's emotions. I realise what I've been waiting for since day one has begun, and I'm nearing the beginning of the end of my life. I'm torn between the urge to run crying to Albus and the urge just to run. I can't bring myself to do either, nor can I speak around the lump that's formed in my throat.

 A protective instinct almost soothing in it's absurd familiarity spreads through my body and seizes control of my hand. I watch with detached horror and faint pleasure as it moves to stroke the boy's soft hair and the back of his neck, but forget to remove it as he stiffens beneath it. _Fuck. _He turns to face me, and his eyes are red-rimmed behind his glasses. His mouth forms a perfect "o" of shock. I snatch my hand away and reach into my depths to summon a blank expression. I assume I've succeeded when a dullness falls over his face. When I next speak, the coolness of my voice resonates in my mind, and I concentrate on levelling my icy tone instead of the general ridiculousness of what I'm saying. 

'My office, tomorrow night at eight, Potter.' 

I turn suddenly to leave as my conscienceness pounces on my behaviour and tears it down like any rabid hyena or man valuing his job or life would. Of course, I value neither, and I choose to focus upon that fact as I walk out the door -instead of the trembling hand that moves to slam it, or  the fragile voice that whispers: 'Thank you, Professor.'

*****

I wake veiled in sweat. My nightshirt's stuck to my back and my scar aches dully as I remember the dream.  A shudder passes through me and I recall Lucius Malfoy's voice, smooth and hateful as a piece of broken glass. 

_'We have found him, my Lord, and we will bring him to you. His treachery will not go unpunished.'_

I felt the vengeful smirk and dull ache of betrayal behind his words, and I  chuckled with a voice and reached out with a hand that wasn't my own. _No, _I thought, as he finched away from my gentle white hand and my dull red gaze. _And neither will yours. _

I fumble for my glasses before I run to the bathroom and eject last night's dinner into the sink, coughing up bile as if that'll change the fact that _I was Voldemort,_ again. I hang limp over the sink for a while, trying to quench the tears that well in my eyes, and the panic that wells in my gut. __

Calm down_, _I tell myself. You don't know it's Snape they're looking for. They could be looking for someone else. My mind casts around to find someone… anyone… I find nothing, only him watching me with hooded eyes, the smirk that tugs at his mouth when he's amused and the feeling of his hand in my hair and on my neck. As the tingling sensation heightens so does my nausea. More digestive acids find their way through my oesophagus and into the sink. _They're going to kill him. _They can't. Dumbledore won't let them. I won't let them. I choke on my vomit. What can I possibly do?

 I look into the mirror at my own scared, pale face bathed in the flickering firelight. 

' You look awful, dearie.' She's right, I do. Awful and small and helpless. I take off my glasses and splash my face with cold water several times, before replacing them on my face. I look slightly better. Patches of my nightshirt stick to me. I need to wash. I think longingly to the Prefect's bathroom but  daren't risk going down there, just to get caught by Mrs. Norris or be watched by Moaning Myrtle. I wish I had my wand to cast a soundproofing charm. I close the door more firmly instead before I stand under the shower and wash every inch of guilt and ache from my bones. 

'They're not after him.' I tell myself firmly, as I climb out, scented and clean. 'They can't touch us while we're here.' I remember how he stroked my hair and I blush, wondering how I got into that sentence. My flesh breaks out into goosepimples as my hairs stand on end. I look hurriedly at the blurred form of  the mirror to see if she'll reply, but hear only mild snoring sounds coming from the glass.

 I look out the window. It's still pitch black. Everyone'll be sleeping. The House Elves won't be around for a few hours, but I don't want to be there when they are, all the same. Hermione's just started crochet. 

I towel off and slip silently back to my room. I put on clean robes and my invisibility cloak and resist the urge to go to Dumbledore. He's probably sleeping, too, and I don't know for sure there's anything to worry about. I grab my book bag from the bed stand and head off silently to the library, deciding it's safer than Quidditch practise at this hour would be. I ignore the memory of Ron's teasing voice asking 'Gee, Harry, when did you become Hermione?' 

                                                            *****

The sound of his footsteps recede in a cruel diminuendo. I curse myself for noticing.

Before I fell, I tried to build a wall of indifference, focusing on the static frame of the door, instead of the illicit things I should have liked to have done to the boy who walked through it.

Before I fell, I summoned an infallible dullness that was supposed to protect me. Whether this was from The Dark Lord, the boy, or myself I couldn't tell you. I can only tell you, as I faced his haunted green eyes -even before he raised his wand- it began to give. 

Before I fell, I managed to state in a voice without hoarseness, without breathlessness, without a crack. _'Mr. Potter, I will try to penetrate  your mind on the count of three.'_

Before I fell, I noticed the change in address. 

Before I fell, I counted to three, and plunged mercilessly into his thoughts. 

Before I fell, I saw the face of Sirius Black, and the smokey form of Lily Evans. I saw the Headmaster, cloaked in snow and resonating power. I saw the gentle white hand of the Dark Lord touch the face of Lucius Malfoy before I fell. 

Before I fell, I caught a glimpse of another pale hand, I think much more sallow. I felt a shiver of excitement,  then a stab of horror. I felt a hard rush back inside my own mind before I fell. 

Before I fell, I felt my detachment crumble. I felt him touch my own mind, and watch my thoughts like a film strip. I felt him brush my adolescent loneliness, my older years of dark abandonment, and the clashing emotions I am finally feeling, having been empty for so long. 

Before I fell, I let him see himself, bending like a willow switch to the wind of my dominion, as my willing hands and reverent mouth mapped every pore on his milky skin.  

Before I fell, I pushed him; out of my mind, out of my care and out of my grasp. 

Before I fell, I let my voice shake with anger (though misdirected) as I snarled with menace at a defiant face _'Whatever you think you saw was nothing! Nothing! Forget it, get out of my sight, stay out of my mind, and leave your sick fantasies…' _

Before I fell, he pounced on me, his soft mouth coaxing me to open up to him, to yield more than deranged half-truths and unspoken promises. Before I fell, his youthful tongue implored my own, stunned and sluggish, to bend. 

Before I fell, I stepped back, looked into the precipice of his eyes and breathed

_'This is incredibly foolish.'_

Before I fell, I watched his eyes widen with belated shock, his flushed cheeks palour and his mouth freeze as it exhaled a small, velvety breath upon my chin. I overbalanced at its touch.

 I lifted his chin in a swift movement, pressed my mouth to his and fell. 

Now I have fallen, and I sit, alone in the cold dark of my office, cradling my head in my hands. I savour the whooshing feeling of carelessness that smelled like vanilla essence and tasted less sweet, more soulful than honey, and I  relive the feeling of emptiness a loud noise evoked as it made him step back, too late. I don't remember  after that, only sit, waiting until my mind comes out of it's loop and my stomach and thoughts are no longer suspended, wondering only mildly what it feels like to hit rock bottom. Or if it's already happened, and it felt like sweet release. Or if it's already happened, and I, in my frenzied state of disassociation, didn't feel it at all. 

*****

The desks in the potions classroom are arranged in three rows of four, leaving vast amounts of space. I can't help but think, if I hadn't fallen and gotten myself detention in one of these spaces, none of this would have happened. But that can't be right. Most of it stil would've happened; the dreams, the insomnia…  I just don't know what would've kept me sane. 

Not that I'm clear on my sanity now, anyway. I wanted to tell him about my nightmare. I think bits of it he saw, but I don't really know. I don't really know anything, only that it's been twenty-three days since he touched my arm, twenty-two days since he stroked my neck, and twenty-one since he kissed me. I also know how much daphne oil  to add to a solution of knotgrass and aniseed if you want to make a disillusionment draught, and the nine ways to cure severe profanity disorder with Phoenix derivatives, but that's not really good for much except exams, which'll be interesting to take without him looking at me.

He hasn't looked at me for nineteen days, not since during Potions when he thought I wasn't watching. Which is fine, really, because that's the only time I've tried to look at him. What I saw in his eyes wasn't, though. Fine, I mean. I wasn't stupid enough to expect fondness, or desire. God knows I would've settled for hate. But there was nothing. Not even hurt, or betrayal. It was just like I didn't exist.  I haven't look at his eyes since then, either. Sometimes when I'm working, I've watched his hands, or the way he strokes his chin with his quill. Never his eyes, though. Never until today. 

I had another dream last night. When I woke I thought my head was bleeding. It wasn't but I cried, anyway. Karkaroff died last night. He died in the mansion of some eminent  wizard in Russia, not just with a simple Avada Kedavra. That didn't come 'til later. First I –Voldemort- tore his soul away from him and destroyed it, piece by piece. Then I woke with another painful start, like I was thrown back into my body from a distance, and I cried. I didn't cry from the reeceeding pain (I'll never get used to it, exactly but I'm learning how to deal with it) or from the death of Professor Karkaroff (by now I've seen far braver people die). I cried because I woke, craving the comfort of lean, wiry arms and the scent of sage and chestnuts, and the hint of sweat. I cried because he made me realise I wasn't Voldemort, I was myself, and I wanted to thank him. And I knew I couldn't, because I don't exist to him. And I realised if Kararoff's gone, maybe he won't exist to me, or anyone else, for much longer, either. So I stopped crying. I waved away concerned glances and well-meaning hands. I sniffed, rolled over, and formed a plan, instead. 

Now I take a deep breath and raise my wand behind my cauldron, aiming a petty jinx at his back that I know'll deflect off his robes. And, just as I planned, he turns. His eyes bore into me, but I can't read them. I can't draw a breath. I can't do anything but mutter 'Legilimens' firmly, and go into his mind. 

Because I need to thank him. 

I need to know what he's thinking. 

I need to know if he knows. 

                                                             *****

'Potter!' My enraged voice rings like church bells through the dungeon, and I erupt with anger more lethal than any molten rock this conflicted earth could endeavour to  provide. I throw his mind from my own with enough force to throw him back into the wall, and  tear through the room after the trail of his prescence. My being shakes, my rigid body tremouring with anger, my mind shuddering with indignation and my heart spasming frantically with the energy of loathing to spur it. 

He's sprawled with his back agains the wall. I want to reach out and slap him -an instinct as primitive as Gryffindor himself. Merlin, I'd disembowel him now if there weren't so many witnesses. I'd rid the room of all witnesses in a heartbeat if I thought he were worth the energy a satisfying disembowelment would expend. Before I can do anything, however, the brat begins to recover. He gets up on one knee, lifting his chin in that infuriatingly defiant manner of his. _That's it. _I'll kill him. I will kill him. Wand forgotten, I reach out  _with my hands _to pull him up by the scruff of his robes. I want him to be standing when I wipe his rancid little soul from his chaste little body. I want him to see where all that defiance and persistence and admiration got him. As he stands before me, though, my hands clutching so near to his back, all thoughts of murder and vengeance are gone. His heat radiates against my icy hands and my only desire is to crush him against me again, to remember how he tastes. 

I remember where I am. I rememeber that desiring a student is a bad thing, and they have a place for those who do that's much less safe than Hogwarts. I'm revolted by my fear and my ridiculous display of emotion. I release him with as much force as Hagrid releases noxious gas after an enchilada. He cringes away from my disgust, not realising it's self-directed. So much the better. 

I turn from him and clench every muscle in my body, regaining control and trying to calm myself down. After a moment, I rasp:  'Leave, Potter.' My  voice is low with bridled anger. I wait. I hear nothing. Is he as stupid as he is selfish? I turn back to him, not changing my tone. 'I said leave, now.' His head is bowed, and he's gnawing on his lip. For once, I'd like to see him employ a mannerism of his own. I'm about to force him out the door, when he breezes past me to grabs his things. He stops beside me. His body's shaking. So is his voice. Were I not paralysed as a matter of self-preservation, I would manually rip and burn the part of me that feels for him. 

'Karkaroff's dead.' He whispers, sorowfully. I am stunned. I know I should say something. I can't seem to unclench my teeth. I'm absolved of my duty when he trudges past me, once more. He leaves, not bothering to close the door. His footsteps resonate against the walls.   

I turn back to the rest of my class, who're watching, inanimate and slack-jawed. I rejoice at my newfound ability to move and applaud my self control as a muscle in my jaw twitches, and I manage to keep from incinerating them all. I close my eyes, mind teeming with half-thoughts, theories, memories. I need to find out what happened. I need to get to my Pensieve. I need to leave this class. 

I open my eyes to find Draco smirking at me, contempt writ large on his face. I bristle involuntarily. Matters of life and death will have to wait. Right now I must show a rotten miscreant I will not be intimidated, under the guise of teaching a lot of hapless wretches what may prove to be, if my _real _work does not achieve it's purpose, an entirely wasted art. 

I bark at my students to stop gaping and continue trying pound knowledge through their dense little skulls, else I'll subtract points. They oblige, leaving my body free to restlessly pace the classroom and my mind free to ponder my possible fate, the demise of a former compatriot, and to find its way back to Potter. I cringe inwardly when I realise just how dependent I am, we all are, on the boy. I shudder outwardly when I realise just how dependent he thinks he is on me. 

*****

I stand as soon as I hear the opening door, and he enters. I almost want to laugh when a bitter draught blankets me with the smell of sage and roasted chestnuts -his. I close my eyes to concentrate on it for just the briefest second, trying to grasp at the feeling like it's something to hold onto, something that'll ground me, instead of tripping me up. When I my eyes open he's watching me. He's noticed. The blank look is back. I tear away my gaze before hurt or embarrassment can register on my face, willing for something to distract me. My gaze sweeps the room for a second before my something in my brain clicks in recognition. I focus upon the familiar object, a white basin. A pensieve. His. No!

I groan, a flush rising to my face. He looks at me, unimpressed, and gestures to the chair I was in. 

'Sit.' 

I do.

'Talk.' 

I can't. 

I try to swallow a few times, uselessly –all the muscles in my throat have seized up. 

He gets up, and turns his back to me, not wanting to bear witness to my embarrassing performance. The glass jars on the shelves glint at me like cold eyes and he begins to pace. I'd bite my lip if I didn't think it would make me vomit. I run my hands through my hair, and rub my eyes behind my glasses. 

I open my mouth to begin speaking, but instead a strangled cry comes out. Both my hands fly to my scar, knocking my glasses clean off my face. I'm dimly aware that they fall to the floor and shatter as I sink to my knees and convulsions of pain overtake my body. Long hands catch me before I hit the floor. The pain blinds me. My organs writhe inside me, burning like they're bursting to get out. I clutch at my scar again. The pain pitches. I cough bile onto a strong arm that may or may not be my own. It hits again in a strong wave. I twist and kick, trying to break free of an iron grip that restrains me. My head explodes. My mind reels with pain, like it's just been pushed, hard, against my skull. I shudder, and stumble to the very edge of consciousness. His hands slacken to a more gentle grip with the stiffening of my body. A new energy overtakes me and I relax, my head against his chest. A slow grin spreads over my face as I register the sound of his frantically pulsing heart. 

Severus, my Severus. 

I knew nothing could keep us apart. ****

*****


End file.
